1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to compressed data and more particularly relates to storing and retrieving compressed data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data storage systems are used to store large amounts of data for organizations and individuals. A data storage system may employ a plurality of hard disk drives to store data. Although the storage capacity of hard disk drives is increasing rapidly over time, the demand for storage capacity is also increasing.
Often data files are compressed to reduce the storage capacity used for each file. Unfortunately, when a large data file is compressed, a significant number of directory entries are often required to locate portions of the data file on one or more hard disk drives. The many directory entries decrease the system bandwidth and increase data latency.